A Night In The Forest of Assassins

A sub title for this story could be: "When You are Up to Your Ass in Crocodiles it is Hard to Remember that Your Objective is to Clear the Swamp".


I had just thrown open the door of the Armory at Naval Detachment Nha Be, Vietnam and at that very moment Gunnersmate Brian Smith shot a round from my Tommy Gun into the blast barrel in the rear of the Armory shack.

"Hey Smitty," I yelled above the radio blaring songs from Jimi Hendrix.

"Hey Sarge," Smitty smiled. He always found it strange to refer to a Navy Petty Officer as Sarge, but acknowledged the nickname my father gave me was novel enough to honor.

"So how does she work," motioning toward my submachine gun which he was now holding at port arms. " I'm meeting Kunzie for patrol in an hour and--" Smitty cut me off.

"Looks real good, fires fine, here take it away," as he handed me the gun.

" Okay, thanks a lot man." I threw him a carton of Marlboros that I was carrying in the cargo pocket of my fatigues, turned and walked out the door and down to the boat basin where I found Kunzie waiting patiently for me.

Kunzie and I had been pulling 12 hour night patrols since we met each other 2 months earlier. He came to Nha Be via the YRBM 16 up on the Vam Co Tay River, I after we turned River Division 9 over to the Vietnamese Navy through the Vietnamization Program. We both survived the rumor wars of Vietnamization: "You're going home...early out program... going to the Cambodian border... going to Saigon... gonna be an advisor to the Vietnamese Navy."

Every three nights for the months of June and July 1969 we took up our post in a 20 foot Boston Whaler. We were one of two Whalers, our call sign being Whiskey Foxtrot 1. The other boat was Whiskey Foxtrot 2.

"Kunzie," I yelled from a 50 foot distance. He waved and smiled. As I approached I noticed that he had already stowed on the whaler the PRC radio, a box of concussion grenades, and the 12 gauge Ithaca shotgun loaded with 00 shot.

"Ready to rock and roll Sarge?" Kunzie motioned toward the boat.

"Yep," I nodded. "Hey, I told Reynolds we would run him out to one of those Australian ships in the anchorage basin for a bottle of Ten High..some sort of high stakes poker."

"Sure," Kunzie smile and added, "I lined up a race with Whiskey 2. Kinglsey is driving...bottle of JB on the line."

"You know I hate that shit; let's make it Old #7," referring to Jack Daniels whiskey.

"Okay with me." Kunie looked away to find the radio handset.

"Oh yeah Kunie good idea, let's broadcast on the net by calling Whiskey 2." I replied with a sarcastic tone and raised tilted eyebrows.

" Ok, tell you what, after we drop Reynolds off, we will run up on Whiskey 2 and tell them." Kunzie motioned toward the ships two miles from our position.

We took Reynolds from the dock to the Aussie ship, collected our bourbon bounty and headed up the Saigon River to join Whiskey Foxtrot 2. It was early evening, the extreme heat of the day was cooling to a comfortable temperature, the river was flat like a mirror and the sun was starting to form a majestic red tinted sunset. We raced them for ten miles, the boats with their twin 50 hp mercs running out perfectly. We won. We then resumed our night time routine, which was to run into the darkness of the Rung Sat Special Zone, known from ancient times of smuggling and piracy as the Forest of Assassins, and seek out illegal sampans, floating mines, and sapper swimmers intent on blowing up ships, navy bases, and river patrol boats. Most of the evening was uneventful. We turned a sampan with a woman and child aboard away from the base and back to their home. No one was to be on the river after an 1800 hours curfew. Most knew. Some didn't. Some tried anyway. I drove most of the night and Kunzie watched. Next time he would drive and I would watch.. Usually, I was trying to figure out what exactly we were doing on these patrols. The instructions had never been real clear and as usual we seemed to be making it up as we went along. So I would listen to the radio traffic, watch through the darkness to see if anything didn't look right, and try to stay awake. During those dark lonely hours on this night my thoughts turned to home and how much I missed the life I had before Vietnam. I was trying to figure out how exactly why my navy career took this turn which sent my here to this river, being in this mangrove swamp, breaking into my training to be an electronics technician, which ultimately would have me stationed on a Destroyer or Cruiser sailing the seven seas. I could never find the exact answer for that question and contemplating the solution usually frustrated and angered me. To learn, prepare for college, and to keep my mind occupied with something other than war, I recently began a correspondence course on Diesel Engineering through the University of Wisconsin. At 0200 hours we received a call from command to report to the boat dock at Nha Be.

"Kunzie wake up!" I threw a pack of Marlboros at his head and connected. He jumped with a start and struggled to find the shotgun.

"What the fuck," he muttered, still mostly asleep.

"They want us at the dock...don't know why," I whisper yelled over the outboard motors which I now had on full throttle. We were at the vicinity of the Old French Fort and would be closing the 5 miles to the base in no time flat.

As we approached, we caught sight of three navy personnel standing on the dock looking toward the river, where 25 meters out a large clump of brush moved slowly with the current toward the dock and 20 patrol boats. I recognized Freschee and several other's whose names I could not recall.

"Sarge, lasso that tree trunk and see if you can get secondary off it," Freschee yelled to me. I knew what he meant and immediately instructed Kunzie to take the boat controls as I located our lasso from a storage compartment. I was feeling fortunate that among other skills my cowboy father taught me was how to lasso from a moving horse. I perched on the bow of the boat and twirled the rope. Right away, we had the brush captured in the lasso and maneuvered to the middle of the river channel a half mile from the boat dock. We were positioned near the spot where one month before a Japanese cargo ship had hit a mine and turtled unable to entirely sink in the shallow river. No fatalities from the crew or the 20 tourists on their way up river to Saigon. Although it was dark, I could tell our location from the sweet putrid smell of rotting rice mixed with the spilled diesel fuel entrapped in the ship's compartments. It's interesting what goes through your mind at times like this. I was thinking of Freschee and that he was about 35 years old, had been in the Navy for 15 years and was only an E-5. Why was that? Lack of intelligence? Fuck up? Bad luck? Yet, he was the one issuing orders to someone who was the same paygrade with two years in and happened to be holding the rope with the bomb at the end of it. My thoughts were interrupted by my crewmate.

"This is my favorite part," said Kunzie, smiling as he racked a shell into the Ithaca.

"Okay buddy, let me get some slack in this rope so we aren't on top of the brush if a mine blows." I quickly let out the rope and selected reverse on the shifter to make some distance, wishing Kuni wasn't so hyper. He shot. Nothing. He jacked another round into the Ithaca. Shot. Nothing. Jacked another round. Shot again. Nothing. The boat was now drifting toward the brush pile. Suddenly, he threw the shotgun down onto the deck, grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin and launched it as I hit the gas to get as much distance as possible in the 200 foot rope. We were about 20 feet away when the explosion occurred. It was a large blast and the water wave flooded our boat and knocked Kunzie back onto me at the steering station.

"You okay man?" I yelled in his ear as I could hardly hear anything.

'Wet", he indicated, laughing hysterically. "Good thing these whalers are unsinkable. Guess we have to bail the water though."

"Unsinkable like the Titanic huh....start bailing buddy and I'll try to get us on step to drain the water. Better call it in," I told him. "Let them know we're okay." Kunzie called the base and reported our activity. I pulled in what remained of my lasso rope while getting some speed on the boat. We were advised to resume our normal patrol, which we did until our patrol ended at 0530.

As we approached the boat ramp on the side of the fuel dock I noticed an ambulance parked with the double rear doors open. A PBR crew was unloading two litters with someone on them into the back of the ambulance, which then slowly drove away. I , for a brief moment thought of the constant and often anonymous flow of dead and wounded through the meat grinder of this place, this war.

"So Kunzie...after we unload the boat ya wanna grab some chow", I turned to him as he watched the ambulance drive away.

"Yeah", he replied looking distant and with flat affect. The constant loss and stress of the war was wearing on Kunzie and he was constantly fighting to maintain his upbeat and happy go lucky personality. Sometimes his true emotions betrayed him and he became very lonely inside and distant.

"What are you doing later", I asked.

" Gonna workout with weights then hit the rack. You?" he answered flexing his biceps and smiling.

" Think I'll drop in on the engine shop. They're overhauling a Rolls Royce Engine from one of the minesweepers, and I may never get another chance to work on one of those so I might as well take my shot at it."

"You still taking that USAFI class on Diesel Engineering", Kunzie never could get over me taking a college class from the University of Wisconsin while fighting on the swamps of Vietnam.

"Yep", I replied as I watched Kunie unload our gear from the boat. "You don't know the half of it. Not that long ago I was sitting in a classroom at the Naval Reserve Center in Madison studying electronics from a Petty Officer who was a teacher at the University. So, I ask you what exactly is out of place: Me being here studying diesel engineering through a correspondence course, or me in Madison studying electronics and being sent here to hang out with your ugly ass, driving a boat around a mangrove swamp all night?"

We walked the short distance from the boat dock to the mess hall, stowed our gear outside the door, then headed in to eat breakfast.